


We Are Brand New

by katebishoop



Series: tumblr prompts [19]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Fluff, Horseback Riding, Post-Season/Series 02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-03
Updated: 2016-05-03
Packaged: 2018-06-06 04:40:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6738550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katebishoop/pseuds/katebishoop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bellamy had taught Clarke how to drive, so it's only fair that she teaches him how to ride a horse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Are Brand New

**Author's Note:**

> **anonymous asked** : Prompt: after her driving lesson with bellamy, clarke decides to teach bellamy how to ride a horse
> 
> A sequel to [We Live For This](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6253936). Title once again comes from [We Are The Kids](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnQS0FGaBbg) by Walk the Moon

It takes a month for Clarke finally learn how to drive the rover. One month of just the two of them, sneaking it out in the night. He knows Raven knows, but she doesn’t say anything; she lets them have this time to themselves. This time to themselves where they drive circles in the field, and laying side by side beneath the stars, telling stories and just being able to breathe.

He’s proud of her, when she manages to drive the rover all the way back to camp with no problems. She’s positively beaming, a shining sun underneath the moonlight - it’s pure joy, that she’s accomplished this. But to Bellamy is a little bittersweet, because while he’s so happy for her, he’s going to miss those nights. Those nights, with their shoulders touching and their fingertips brushing in the grass, brought him to a new level of peace he hadn’t had before.

They had gone out literally every night, and the first night that they don’t - he’s unable to sleep. He goes for a walk, just to try to clear his head, to tire him out. And he sees her - her blonde head a beacon in the darkness in front of him, and he knows that she’s feeling the same thing. She’s too far up ahead though, and she’s long disappeared back into the remnants of the Ark by the time he gets there.

Only after that, is he able to sleep again. 

* * *

“I’m driving today,” Clarke says, determination strong in her voice, and everyone’s heads turn towards her.

Raven arches an eyebrow at her, but Clarke doesn’t falter under her gaze. Raven shrugs, caving. “Everyone better buckle up.”

She tosses the keys to Clarke, who catches them. Everyone piles into the back, a little weary. But Bellamy isn’t worried at all. Clarke’s got this - he’s seen it, he’s _knows_ she can do this. He gives her two thumbs up, and her grin is enough to let him know that she’s not nervous at all.

They’ve left him the shotgun seat, which honestly doesn’t surprise him. But he doesn’t buckle up though. They never do, usually. But this time he doesn’t because he wants to show his faith in Clarke. He trusts her on this - and their friends should too.

The garage doors open, and Octavia and Lincoln dart off on their horses.  Clarke starts the engine, her foot pressing on the grass-

And then jerking to a quick stop that has everyone yelping, and Bellamy would have flung forward into the dashboard if his leg hadn’t been braced against it.

“I’m _kidding_ ,” Clarke says, with a mischievous smirk. Someone throws a wad of paper at her, but she just swats it away.

The rest of the ride is smooth. Clarke ‘s foot steady on the gas, slowing down to make tight turns. She expertly maneuvers through the trees and around the rocks. He gives her directions because they aren’t going to the field just yet, but the trading posts in sector seven. But soon enough she doesn’t even need them anymore, she knows where she’s going.

She’s barely stopped in front of the trading post when the back hatch of the rover opens and Miller jumps out.

“Ground!” Bellamy hears him shout from behind them. “Solid ground!”

Bellamy snorts, and he sees Clarke roll her eyes as she turns the rover off. She did a good job and she knows it - Miller’s just being dramatic.

Niylah’s waiting outside to greet them. Bellamy’s pretty sure they’re her favorite customers. She looks surprised to see Clarke though, but then she’s smiling and waving her over. He’s always wondered how much of her time away did she spend here with Niylah, but that time for Clarke is something that belongs to her, so he won’t push it.

Bellamy has only a rudimentary understanding of Trigedasleng, so he can’t understand a word of what the women are saying to each other.

“Niylah’s saying she’s glad Clarke’s washed her hair.” Bellamy turns to see Octavia behind him, arms crossed over her chest. “Apparently she only smells like a small swamp now.”

Octavia comes forward and leans her head on his shoulder. They watch the two women together, as their friends mill about them, unloading what they’ve brought to trade. “I want you to be happy.”

Bellamy cranes his head to the side to look down at her. “I am happy.”

Octavia pushes off him, standing up straight, but she doesn’t turn to look at him. “If that means her... then I’ll learn to live with that.”

Bellamy follows his sister's line of sight back towards Clarke. He and Clarke have repaired things, but he knows that things are still strained between her and Octavia. There’s understanding, and acceptance, but not quite forgiveness. But this feels like a step.

“Thank you, O.”

Octavia dismisses his sentiment with a shrug. “Whatever. You should probably go watch Jasper - he’s eying the drugs again.”

She leaves him then, and he watches her go before turning back to look at Clarke. And he catches one last glimpse of she and Niylah disappear into the building.

* * *

“I vote that Clarke always does the talking during trading runs,” Miller says as he shoves another box into the rover.

Bellamy agrees. They may be her favorite customers, but Clarke is her favorite of the favorites. They got a ton of supplies, but the real ticket is the two new horses they got.

One’s pure black, and Bellamy can only tell it has eyes by the shine in them. The other is spotted - white with thousands of chestnut tufts. Clarke leads them over by the reins over.

“How about I ride the black one back, and you this guy?” Clarke asks, tugging on the reins of the spotted one. “He’s got freckles, just like you.”

Raven saunters up to them, and throws an arm around Bellamy’s shoulder. “Bellamy Blake? Ride a horse? He’s worse than, Miller.”

“Hey,” Bellamy says with a slight pout as he brushes her off him. “Horses like me. They just don’t _listen_ to me.” 

“Have you tried giving them a rousing motivational speech?” Raven teases, taking the reins of the spotted horse and walking off.

Clarke tilts her head to the side, studying him. “You really don’t know how to ride a horse?”

Bellamy shrugs, feeling a small flush on his cheeks. “Had the rover. Never really needed to learn.” 

Clarke stares at him a moment longer, considering, and he shifts under his gaze. She pulls the keys out of her pocket and tosses them to him. “I guess that means you’re driving then.”

* * *

Bellamy doesn’t think much of that conversation in the next two days. But then he gets to his guard shift, and Kane just shakes his head.

“You’ve been reassigned until further notice.” Kane tells him, and holds up a hand to silence Bellamy’s protests. “You’ll be back on the guard when complete your new assignment. Report to the gate.”

Bellamy was pissed, his hands clenching into fists as he made his way towards the gate. Kane was in charge of him, but Kane had never really bossed him around before. Let alone uproot him like this, without any form of discussion.

But then he sees her, and everything makes sense.

Clarke’s standing by the gate, brushing the black horse. She’s got the other horse with her two, a pack slung over her shoulder.

“You had something to do with this, didn’t you,” It’s not even a question, and he doesn’t even need to elaborate because he knows he’s right.

Clarke beams at him in response, and his body relaxes instantly. “The rover could break down - you need to learn how to ride a horse. Kane agrees with me.”

Bellamy sighs, running a hand through his hair. He can’t believe this… his official job now at camp is hanging out with Clarke - just having alone time with the person he loves - and he can’t be upset about that, no matter how much meddling Clarke had to do to make that happen.

That, the fact that she advocated for all this, actually brings a lightness to his heart, a warm feeling that gets brighter when she smiles at him.

He eyes the horses behind her. “So which one’s mine?”

“Right now? Neither,” Clarke shrugs off her pack and shoves it at him. “We ride together until we get to the field.”

Clarke mounts the black horse in one swift motion, the reins of the brown one tight in her hand. She sticks her other hand out to him. “You can use that stump as a step stool if you need to.”

Bellamy lets out a huff, and slings the pack over his shoulder. He takes Clarke’s hand, and pushes up from the ground, swinging his leg over. He sort of falls into her back, leaning heavily on it, and he has to brace his other hand on her waist to steady himself.

He’s pushed up right against her back and it’s - that warm feeling in his chest evolves into something else. He’s so, so thankful that she can’t see his face now.

“Hold onto him,” Clarke says, pushing the reins of the other horse into his hand. “And hold onto me.”

He doesn’t need to be told twice.

He grips the reins tightly in his hand, his other arm coming around her waist, holding her flushed against him.

“We’ll take things slow first, okay?” There’s something a little off in her voice as she leads them out the gate, but he can’t quite place it.  

He adjusts his arm around her, holding her a little tighter, but that’s only partially because he’s worried he’ll fall.

* * *

Bellamy should not be nervous - he’s faced much more terrifying things, things that still give him nightmares and make him wake up in a cold sweat, things that’ll haunt him for the rest of his days. But he is nervous, of this big animal that’s giving him this weird look. If horses can even give you weird looks.

“Do you think you can mount without help?” Clarke asks him.

The answer’s no. He knows for a fact it’s no, but.

He tries anyway - having to swing his leg up twice to get it up and over, and he’s done it with too much force, because suddenly he’s falling down the other side. But Clarke’s quick, and she catches him, pushing him back up as he pulls on the reins.

“That wasn’t… so bad,” Clarke says, a little out of breath. “We’ll work on that.”

That pretty much describes the whole lesson. He's supposed to just follow Clarke around on her horse. But like her told her back at Niylah’s horses just _don't_ listen to him.

He's definitely not as bad as Miller though, because he only gets thrown off the horse _once_.

“Shit are you okay?” Clarke’s kneeling in front of him. She takes his head in her hands, examining him.

“Yeah,” he groans out, because it's partially true. The feeling of her fingers in his hair placates the pain a little bit.

Clarke gives him her signature doctor look, which is largely unimpressed. “I think that's enough for today.”

The pains worth it though, because he gets to sit behind Clarke on her horse again on the way back. He slouches against her, his head buried in her hair, breathing her in. So worth it.

* * *

The next day goes a little better, and the day after that even more.

Clarke’s a great teacher, despite him being a terrible student. He gets distracted watching her - not her horseback riding technique, but _her_ \- so alive and bright and smiling. She’s mastered the rover, but it's clear that horses are more her element.

Bellamy manages to get his horse to trot, which is a miracle in itself. But the horse doesn't go towards Clarke like he wants, instead he veers off into the brush to snack on some tall grass.

It takes him a bit, but he eventually regains control, steering the horse back out into the field. Clarke gives him two thumbs up, and that distracts him enough that he almost falls off again. 

He's working on it - but Clarke just has that effect on him.

* * *

“They still don’t have names yet,” Clarke says, taking a bite of her sandwich. They're about a week into his lessons, and at this point Bellamy can't tell if he's really this bad or if he's just stalling so they can spend more time together. Maybe a little bit of both. “Raven wouldn’t let me name one after you.”

Bellamy snorts. He knows which horse she’s talking about: _he has freckles, just like you_. “It would be weird to ride myself.”

Clarke pauses, her sandwich halfway in her mouth, eyes wide and gaping at him. Bellamy cringes. “That came out wrong.”

Clarke swallows, a grin appearing on her face. “Ya’ think?”

“What about Balius and Xanthus?” Bellamy suggests. Clarke just blinks at him. “Achilles’ horses.”

“Balius,” Clarke says, testing it out, “ _Xan-thus?_ I don’t think so.”

“Arion? Crazy fast immortal horse, pretty wild. Kinda an asshole.”

Clarke hums, nodding her head. “I like that. It fits you- I mean _yours_.” Clarke grins, and then she shifts against the tree, her shoulder pressing to his. “What about mine?” She asks, her eyes on the black horse.

He doesn't know when these horses became _theirs_ but - he likes it. Even if his horse is in fact, a total asshole.

Bellamy racks his brain, trying to think of something else. His knowledge of mythological horses is not as extensive as his knowledge on the heroes. “Pegasus?”

Clarke cranes her neck to look up at him. “The flying horse?”

“Yeah - Pegasus is also the _name_ of him though.”

“Huh.” Clarke says, relaxing back into the tree. “That’s kind of how we named our sun _Sun_ and our moon _Moon, though.”_

Bellamy snorts. “Got any better ideas?”

Clarke thinks it over for a moment. “What about Trojan?” Clarke asks, “You know in keeping with your nerd theme.”

Bellamy ducks his head to hide the huge, dopey grin that’s spread across his face. “Yeah. Yeah okay.”

It’s endearing and, God, Bellamy was a total sap for it. He's a sap for anything Clarke Griffin.

He thinks back to his conversation with Octavia, when he told her that he was happy.

Which is true, because he _is_ happy - and here with Clarke, he was even more so.

He looks back up at her, and she's watching the horses graze out in the meadow. There's a stray lock of hair in Clarke’s face, and he reaches over, gently brushing it back behind her ear.

She gives him a small smile - and he's so goddamn _happy_ it’s unreal - he had never seen this level of joy in his life, not after everything that’s happened and everything that they’ve lost. But she's alive, she's back - they're back, together. She's doing okay, fitting in and feeling at home. She's smiling more and more each day that it becomes her standard expression and not a rarity.

But he knows one way he could be happier. He hopes that applies to her too, because he's not sure how much longer he's going to be able to keep himself from closing the distance between them.

* * *

“I believe in you,” Clarke says before she leans over from where she sits atop of Trojan so that she can brush a gentle but firm kiss onto his cheek.

No one in Arkadia has been bothering or commenting on their… assignment. It's like they want them to have this time together, or that they are afraid of interfering, like it’s some fragile thing that'll break. But it's not, really. And they both know that they can't drag this out forever. She's got to get back to medical, he to the guard; both of them to mapping missions and trading runs.

Besides, Clarke believes in him, so of course he's going to be able to do this.

His cheek is still tingling from where her lips were, and it dissipated any residual anxiety he had lingering in him.

Reins no longer feel foreign in his hands, but like an extension of himself. Clarke likes to joke that Arion’s like him - but Bellamy feels like that’s true at this point. Brash, dickish tendencies, the strong desire to be free and just run.

So that’s what he does. He and Arion shoot off across the field. He’s never done this part before. But he loves the feeling of the wind blowing through his hair and flushing his cheeks. It does feel like he’s flying, a speeding bullet shooting through the air; he wonders if this is how the Greeks came up with the Pegasi in the first place.

Driving in the rover with all their friends, singing along to age old songs is great, but. There’s something much more freeing about being out in the open air, it filling his lungs and the force of it all actually making his eyes water.

He brings Arion in for a tight turn around the trees at the far end, and as they boomerang back around and head back in the direction of Trojan and Clarke, Bellamy has never felt more alive. It’s like breaking a barrier he didn’t even know was blocking him, it’s like being born again and seeing the ground in a whole new light.

Clarke’s beaming so brightly at him that he can tell before he even gets close to her.

He gets Arion to a stop next to Trojan, and Clarke’s even more radiant up close. “That was amazing-”

He cuts her off by placing both of his hands on either side of her face and pulling her to him, kissing her deeply because in this moment he isn’t nervous or hesitant or afraid - he feels like he can do anything, like anything could happen.

And Clarke? _She kisses him back._ She opens her mouth for him, pulling him by the shirt closer - and _she feels, she tastes, she is_ even more intense and magical than the adrenaline pumping through his veins. He can’t believe he’s waited so long to do this, but it’s so good and so right that maybe that’s okay.

But then Arion is a total dick and moves to eat some grass, and Bellamy - holding onto Clarke and not the reins - slips off his horse, pulling Clarke down with him onto the grass.

Bellamy groans at the hard ground smacking against his back. But it’s hard to be in pain when he’s got Clarke ontop of him, laughing a sound that’s more beautiful than birds singing. Her soft blonde hair hanging a curtain around their heads, a filter causing everything to be in a yellow glow.

She’s still laughing when she kisses again, her smile pressing against his - and this, this is _it_.

He rolls them over in the soft bed of grass. Clarke can’t stop laughing - she’s overflowing with joy, and a little bit of hysteria like she can’t believe this too. That their fresh starts has evolved into something else, a wonderful middle ground that’ll only get better from there.

“I did it.” Bellamy says, between kisses. “ _I did it_.”

Clarke’s a shining sun underneath him. “You did.”

And he surges down to kiss her again, and again, and again.

* * *

Octavia raises an eyebrow at them when she sees he and Clarke coming over to them on their horses. She and Lincoln are waiting by the garage doors on their own horses, ready for today’s assignment.

“No one’s supervising them today?” She asks, looking them up and down. They haven’t exactly told anyone yet - not with words, at least - but it’s unhideable that something’s changed between them. Neither of them have stopped smiling, keep finding excuses to be near each other, to touch each other, to sneak off some place more private. It’s not a secret, but it’s just _theirs_.

“Nah,” Bellamy says, turning Arion around. “Race you?”

Octavia looks at Clarke. “Is he ready for that?”

He realizes, this is the first time Octavia has spoken directly to Clarke in a long, long time.

But Clarke grins at her, bringing her horse up next to his. “He’s ready for anything.”

He’d lean over to Clarke right then, to kiss her breathless - but then he hears the sound of the garage door opening behind him, and he spurs Arion into action.

“ _Cheater!_ ” He hears Octavia yelling behind him, and then the sounds of hooves trotting and tires rolling.

Octavia overtakes him just past the tree line, and then Lincoln beats him out for second place when they reach the meadow. The rover’s still far behind them, but Clarke trots up to him at the edge.

“I’ll beat her next time.” Bellamy tells her, watching his sister and Lincoln dismount across the meadow.

“It’s okay,” Clarke says, a bit teasingly, taking his hand, “I still love you.”

Bellamy tightens his hold of the reins in his hand. He’s not having a repeat of last time as he leans over from his horse so he can kiss her, his other hand tangling itself in her golden hair.

“I love you too.”

And now, Bellamy couldn’t be happier.

**Author's Note:**

> Also I wrote part of this on the mobile app? I tried to proofread, but I may have missed something. So if you see like a really weird sentences that completely misuses a word, blame autocorrect and let me know please & thank.
> 
> prompts are open over on [tumblr](http://bellakeyblake.tumblr.com)!


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